In an open letter signed by 18 experts, Brazil's Department of Indigenous Affairs (FUNAI) rejected US anthropologists Robert Walker and Kim Hills' call to force contact with the estimated 50-100 tribes that have had no contact with the outside world.
The professors, from the University of Missouri and Arizona State University, argued that "controlled contact is the only possible strategy for protecting these people."
The FUNAI specialists disagreed, pointing out that contact can cause disease, loss of autonomy, and loss of land and resources.
"There is never absolute control in contact situations," FUNAI commented, concerned about unscrupulous outsiders taking advantage of the indigenous tribes.
"It is worth remembering that the practices Brazil adopted during the intense economic expansion of the 1970s and 1980s resulted in widespread disintegration and population loss for indigenous peoples who, until then, had been uncontacted."